Written by Ch. Faisal Mahmood
This week also in the news is our favorite flag carrier of our country, on hearing or reading the very name of which, conjures up sentiments of bruised pride, concern, dismay, anger, tolerance and hope among Pakistanis, depending on their age and station in life. Ours is of bruised pride.
Here the report is very disappointing and the report is that the airline major stations whether they are local or international have drastically missed the given revenue target by miles for the year of 2015-16.It is expected that the new management will show its displeasure to the people who were heading these stations including the all District Managers.
The performance of Lahore Passengers Sale Section, New York , Copenhagen, Oslo, Paris, Manchester , Barcelona even station like Toronto missed the target by 6.77 percent as the PIA could earn 41.96 million in Canadian dollars against a target of 45 million dollars, according to the report. Why, the reasons once again is lack of planning and management; posting against the merit is another major reason.
On United Kingdom routes including London, Manchester, Bradford and Birmingham, station heads were 19.68 percent behind the target as they could collect 82.98 million pounds against a target of 103.31 million pounds. The heads of PIA UAE including Dubai and Abu Dhabi also failed to achieve targets.
Similarly, sector like Saudi Arabia including Jeddah, Madina, Damam and Riyadh, the airline in spite of Hajj and Umrah lucrative season failed to achieve the target. Same was the fate of the Far East.
Crux of the matter is that things are still at sixes and sevens, the head of the organization is on both, ECL and on leave and print and electronic media is full of different stories, majority of which are either wrong or over projected but definitely harmful for the organization.
As we wrote in our previous editorial that we hope that the new advisor and the Board would look deep and wide enough to ascertain the causes, the factors, the decreasing & missing revenue targets, the events, the postings, the choice of equipment, the macro policy inputs, the diplomatic environment and of course the Market rates of any equipment whether it is on wet lease or on dry lease etcetera in its recent history which have brought the once very astonishing healthy corporation to its present sickness.
We repeat that what was it that a junior traffic assistant in the 1960s could himself decide what to say and what to do when a flight was delayed and what is it that now even the airport manager can not – or does not – take such decisions.
It is all a question of management and the quantum of authority vested in the manager who, of course, must primarily have the requisite know-how, personal qualities and communications skills to get done what he has to get done.
